For over 71 years, Cowhide has come with its wins and losses, its ups and downs, its glories and downfalls. But it has also come with its wild beliefs. 

By: Cynthia Adame – Luna

At the center of it all is the Mineral King bowl and a piece of leather steeped in decades of local folklore and taboo.

Whispers circulate the campus the week of cowhide, one of them being the myth known as Visitors’ Side Phenomenon.

The rule of the curse is simple: No matter who is favored, no matter the season’s record, the team designated to the visitors’ side of the bowl is fated to take home the hide. 

Nathan Gonzalez ‘27, a 4-year football player at Redwood, said, “The only superstition I’ve heard was that we always win on the away side, and we always lose when we’re home.”

The assigned school to “home” and “away” alternates every year. This phenomenon went unbroken for a consecutive stretch of years, and the away school continuously walked away with the branded leather trophy

There is an even stricter myth keeping Redwood students awake the night before the big game: The curse of the forbidden name

During the five days leading up to kickoff, saying the actual name of your rival school out loud is bad juju. If you speak these forbidden words, you are practically handing over the trophy to them. 

To bypass the curse, the opposite school is otherwise referred to as “The School Across the Street” or “The red/maroon School”

Although the same myths and superstitions don’t always apply to our rivals just down the street. 

Sofia Zamabad ‘28, a third-year ASB student, said, “I don’t think they do, because I actually did go to Whitney [like during the middle of the week] and their ASB president actually told us that they didn’t, that they don’t do things like that there.”

Whether the curses hold true is entirely up to who believes them.

One of the coaches for the Redwoods Varsity Football team, Coach Robuck, said, “I don’t think I’m as superstitious [as I thought]… [Superstitions], on the other hand, it does give you something else to worry about, and maybe takes your mind off the game a little bit”.

But at the end of the game, these superstitions are invisible threads that tie generation after generation of students to the same magic of shared myths.

Cynthia Adame-Luna
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Cynthia Adame - Luna '30 is a first writer in journalism, for her first year she is in the Arts and Entertainment section. She hopes to write stories of the many artistic creates and events at Redwood.

 

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